If you're like me, it is the morning of December 24th, you're only halfway through your Christmas shopping, and you want your gifts to be environmentally friendly. It's a tall order. So, where do you turn to quickly figure out what to get your loved ones?

Introducing

In case you didn’t notice, this past summer was hot. June, July, and August were the warmest three months in the U.S. since the catastrophic Dust Bowl era in the 1930's. Texas got the worst of it: the state’s average temperature was 86 ºF, about a degree and a half...

The summer of 2011 has rewritten the record books. 

Using our record temperature tracker (see below), which draws on the National Climatic Data Center's database, we found that June, July, and August saw more warm temperature records tied or broken than any other summer in the past...

Welcome to Climate Central’s climate science roundup. This roundup summarizes noteworthy climate science studies published in the previous two weeks, with a special emphasis on articles that might not have been covered by major media outlets. Cross posted from Climate Central

This week in climate science:

The summer heat continues: In Austin, Tex., triple-digit temperatures are causing unprecedented demands on power grids. Oklahoma City is on track to eclipse the record number of 100-degree days in a year, creeping closer to the current record of 50. And in the past month, over 8,000 records have been...

July was hot: Washington, D.C., Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, and Austin set records for not just their warmest July in history, but their warmest month on record. The heat prompted people to hide indoors, crank up the air conditioning, or attempt stunts such as cooking 

Welcome to Climate Central’s climate science roundup. This roundup summarizes noteworthy climate science studies published in the previous two weeks, with a special emphasis on articles that might not have been covered by major media outlets. Cross posted from Climate Central.

Jonathan Trouern-Trend, an intelligence sergeant with the Connecticut National Guard, was at the latrine of the U.S. military base near Al Bakr, Iraq, when he made a discovery: a Lemon-Yellow Tree Frog, one of Iraq’s eight species of amphibians, was sharing the bathroom with him. According to Trouern-Trend, the frog...

This year’s extreme weather, marked by unusually heavy precipitation in the northern half of the country and drought in the South and Southwest, continues.

The Missouri River is currently above flood stage in every state that it passes through. People are evacuating...

As the Memorial Day weekend approaches, many of us are planning road trips -- according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), over 30 million Americans will get in their personal vehicles for a weekend getaway, with many driving hundreds of miles.

Although gas prices have dropped...

"Look, an alligator!" I joked, as a small lizard ran across the path.

I grabbed my iPhone, which was already open to the iNaturalist app, and snapped a picture. The phone's GPS tagged the photo with my latitude and longitude. I tapped...

Cross posted from Climate Central.

At Climate Central, we are excited about the Royal Wedding not because it's an opportunity to fawn over the wealthy and powerful, but because of history. And not just because of history like the fact...

Cross posted from Climate Central.

To better understand the state of the nuclear power industry, Climate Central has built the following interactive map of nuclear facilities as reported by the World Nuclear Association. This...

Welcome to Climate Central’s weekly climate science roundup. This roundup summarizes noteworthy climate science studies published in the previous week, with a special emphasis on work that might not have been covered by major media outlets.

This week in climate science:...

Want to take a bicycle vacation and tackle climate change? Join the Brita Climate Ride.

Climate Ride participants raise money for climate change charities, and over the past three years, Climate Ride has given away more than $300,000 to environmental non-profits. This year, riders can choose to fundraise...

Welcome to Climate Central’s weekly climate science roundup. This roundup summarizes the noteworthy climate science articles published in the previous week, with a special emphasis on articles that might not have been covered in major media outlets. It is cross posted from Climate...

Cross posted from Climate Central.

As the world continues to watch the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant unfold, many are asking what the repercussions will be for the future of nuclear power. First, though, we must understand the current state of the nuclear industry: Where are...

The past two winters have been extraordinarily snowy in parts of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. But exactly how snowy has it been? And how much snow can the region expect in future decades if the climate continues to warm?

You can use the graphics below to find out. The first...

Nearly every week it seems there are new papers on how ecosystems are responding to climate change, as well as how climate change is affecting species extinction rates. Last week was no different: one paper shows shifting biomes in Alaska, and another compares modern rates of extinction to the “great”...

Cross posted on Climate Central.

This click-able map shows the 104 active nuclear reactors in the Lower-48 states, overlaid with both recent earthquakes and the 15 strongest earthquakes in the region's history. Note that the most powerful earthquake on record, estimated to have measured 9.0 on the...